The teaching programme of the MCISB Doctoral Training Centre is tailor made for integration, which is the essence of Systems Biology. Our unconventional teaching curriculum is based on substantial existing experience of teaching Systems Biology at Amsterdam and Gosau and is also embedded in the environment of the excellent Doctoral Training Account tradition of the University of Manchester.

Our teaching programme is connected to the European Systems Biology Training networks (Marie Curie NucSys), and to the network of European Systems Biology Doctoral Training Centres. We are also establishing strong links to relevant industries with the participation of industry members on the Management Board. Additionally, parts of the course will be taught by industry-related personnel.

The taught training elements of the proposed programme are:

Intake/basic retraining course (4 weeks)

Intensive courses (10 weeks)

Course topics:

• Communication skills
• Genome, transcriptome and bioinformatics for Systems Biology
• Proteomics, metabolomics and their quantitative multidimensional analysis
• Bioinformatics, control engineering, modelling approaches, e-science, grid computing
• Molecular systems
• Integrative Systems Biology
• Systems Biology in practice
• Beyond Systems Biology

Kitchen courses (2 courses, 1 week each)

Rotation projects (2 projects, 11 weeks each)

Skills evaluation (1 week)

Bidisciplinary research project (around 3 years)

ISBML research week (once a year; in 2nd, 3rd and 4th year)

Networking and communication (intermingled with the above)

Outlook program (2 weeks; beginning of 4th year)

PhD examination/viva

Postdoctoral follow-up program